A typical drilling operation involves using a drill string to transmit drilling fluid (“mud”) and torque down a well bore to a drill bit to break up rocks and other material in the formation. The drill string is a column, or string, of pipes that allows the drilling fluid to be pumped down through the drill string and circulated back up an annulus or gap formed between the drill string and an outer casing, which is a larger pipe within the well bore that is held in place with cement to stabilize the well bore. A typical drill string comprises drill pipes, transition pipes, a drill bit, drill collar, various tools and instruments, and the like. The drill string is held up by a hoisting apparatus on a drilling rig and lowered into and pulled out of the well bore, called “tripping in” and “tripping out,” to bore a path through the formation.
Designing complex drill string operations requires rigorous analysis to define key aspects of each pipe-related operation in the wellbore. For example, determining which drill rig or equipment to use, the proper string components, and the appropriate drilling fluid properties and parameters to drill safely and efficiently are but a few of the challenges those having ordinary skill in the drilling art must address. Managing these challenges requires complex solutions that simplify the complexity using the latest scientific tools and technologies to model and analyze the complexity.
A number of solutions exist in the industry for modeling and analyzing drill string operations. One example is the DecisionSpace® Well Engineering Software available from Landmark Graphics Corporation, a division of Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. This software allows operators to select the optimum rig and equipment, string components, and fluids to drill various types of wells (onshore, offshore, deep water, high-pressure/high-temperature, 3-D directional, profiles, horizontal, and extended reach). Among other things, the software models pipe strings to define the optimum windows of operation during the design and execution phases of the well and anticipates risks and generally allows faster drilling without compromising operation safety.
Existing solutions, however, typically operate on a single analysis basis such that only one analysis may be presented at a time. For a given modeling session, once a user initiates an analysis, the results of the previous analysis are discarded and no longer available for that session. The user cannot easily go back to the previous analysis during the current session, but instead must reenter all the operational parameters from the previous analysis and rerun the analysis in order to see the results of the earlier analysis. More importantly, the user cannot easily view and compare the results of the previous analysis with any new analyses, for example, on a side-by-side basis, to see what impact the change in one or more operational parameters may have had on the analyses.
A need therefore exists for improved techniques for modeling and analyzing oil and gas drilling operations, and particularly for managing multiple instances of such modeling and analysis. The disclosed embodiments satisfy one or more of these needs and solve other problems as well.